Tag Archives: fluxbytes

On most systems this can be configured by going to Control Panel --> Power Options --> Choose when to turn off the display, but there are always some situations that this solution will not suffice. As an exmaple, the last time I faced this problem, Active Directory’s settings were overriding my system’s settings, which caused my display to turn off every 5 minutes regardless of how much I tried to tweak it using the Power Options.

As a workaround I decided to create a small application that would just keep the screen from turning off. I decided to share it with you in case you ever find yourself in a similar position.

The theory behind this solution is very simple. We are using the SetThreadExecutionState windows function to notify the system that the screen should stay on.

Flags DescriptionsES_AWAYMODE_REQUIRED (0x00000040) Away mode should be used only by media-recording and media-distribution applications that must perform critical background processing on desktop computers while the computer appears to be sleeping. See Remarks.

ES_CONTINUOUS(0x80000000) Informs the system that the state being set should remain in effect until the next call that uses ES_CONTINUOUS and one of the other state flags is cleared.

ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED(0x00000002) Forces the display to be on by resetting the display idle timer.

ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED(0x00000001) Forces the system to be in the working state by resetting the system idle timer.

QR Workshop is a free, open source and portable application that allows you to generate QR codes of your choice.

As you can see below the interface is minimal and very simple to use. In order to generate a QR code you simply need to specify the dimensions (width and height) of the image you would like to create and enter the text that will be encoded in the QR code image itself. Then simply press generate and save the image.

The result image:

QR Workshop can also be used as a QR code reader which allows you to decode and display the information that is encoded within a QR code image. In order to do that you have to switch to the QR Code Reader tab, drag&drop the QR code image in the text field or simply click the browse button next to it in order to open the file browser which you can use to select one. Finally after you have selected the image of your liking click Decode.